The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Indian Oasis Intermediate Elementary School
Indian Oasis Intermediate Elementary School is a regular public school serving grades four through six in Sells, Arizona, the capital of the Tohono O'odham Nation. It is part of the Baboquivari Unified School District. The school’s enrollment is relatively small for a school serving this grade band. The student body is overwhelmingly composed of American Indian or Alaska Native students, with a smaller share of Hispanic students and a tiny number of Asian students; the school reported no students who are white, Black, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or of two or more races. Data on the share of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, as well as the share with disabilities or classified as English learners, was not reported in the available state data, so a family looking to understand the level of economic or language support should ask the school directly.
State testing results for Indian Oasis Intermediate are available for the 2024-25 school year, but with important limits. In fourth-grade math, about a fifth of students met the proficiency standard, and in fourth-grade English language arts, roughly three out of ten did. The Arizona AASA results for fifth and sixth grade were suppressed, meaning the counts of students tested were available but the proficiency rates were not published, likely due to low numbers. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages results across tested subjects and grades, places it in the bottom quarter relative to other districts in Pima County. Still, measured academic attainment here is low across the board. The multi-year trend data, though limited to a single year of reporting, shows that overall proficiency rates in both math and English language arts were in the single digits or low teens when aggregated across grades. For science, only fifth-grade results were available, and those too were suppressed. A parent should expect that typical test performance at this school is well below state averages, and should discuss with the school what academic supports are in place.
The school operates in a setting that is distinct in character and geography. Sells is the administrative and cultural capital of the Tohono O'odham Nation. The community is rural and car-dependent, located along Arizona State Route 86 a considerable distance from Tucson. The major employers here are the tribal government, the Sells Indian Hospital, the Baboquivari Unified School District, and tribal businesses. The town has seen a population decline in recent decades, and no major new housing developments were reported in publicly available information. Housing market data for this location was not available at the school level.
Indian Oasis Intermediate is a regular public school and is not a charter school. Magnet and Title I status were not reported in the available data. Because it serves only intermediate grades, there is no high school graduation rate to report, and course access, staffing, and discipline data were not available. A search for recent district changes such as bond measures, curriculum updates, or tax shifts turned up nothing, which may mean that the district environment has been stable in recent years or that changes did not clear the bar for public reporting.
For a family considering this school, the picture is one of a small, culturally cohesive intermediate school in a remote, tribal-governance community. Academic proficiency rates are among the lowest in Pima County, a fact that any prospective parent would want to explore directly with the school and the district to understand what interventions, tiered support, or community-based approaches are in place. The school’s strength lies in its role as a neighborhood school within a tightly knit community, not in high measured test scores. Families moving to Sells should expect a car-dependent rural environment with limited housing turnover and a modest but stable institutional infrastructure centered on tribal governance and basic services.
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